Category Archives: Region

So who cares if Obama wants, as part of his legacy, to do what Ronald Reagan refused to do and sign up the United States to LOST, the UN’s Law of the Sea Treaty? Well if you are a small government, liberty-loving American, or citizen anywhere in the free world, you should. Here’s why.

US ratification of this Treaty would effectively grant governance of the bulk of the world’s surface area, its navigable waterways and access to what lies beneath – i.e. the world’s deepwater energy riches, not only fishing rights – to an unelected, anti-US, rabidly anti-Jewish, anti-free market, anti-capitalist body; where those in the democratic West can easily be outvoted.

Sound good to you?

For many Lost is a far-flung fictional fantasy about people facing a dangerous new world that poses unique threats. LOST also offers a new world of unique threats – but is an only too real, clear and present danger. It just so happens, when it comes to ambitions for an expanded Law of the Sea Treaty, that what is in the best interests of the United States is also in the best interest of the free world. No matter that the much of the rest of the world may have already attempted to sign away some of their sovereign rights under LOST. Quite simply, without US ratification (and its naval power), LOST remains a largely meaningless document. It is essential that it stays that way.

The problem with transnational governance of any kind is that on an administrative level it ties up sovereign claims in bureaucratic red tape for years. Meanwhile the world’s ‘less’ democratic leaders, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, will do as they always have, ignore them altogether. Russia has effectively already annexed around 60 percent of the Arctic. We’ve all seen the International Criminal Court of Justice in action. Those hauled up before it are far more likely to die of old age than receive justice. Imagine an international tribunal, with all manner of agendas, demanding governments and successful companies stump up billions of dollars in fines, compensations and ‘reparations’ to be ‘redistributed’ at the whim and collusion of some of the world’s leading dictators.

A little harsh? Then consider the UN’s track record.

LOST, the story so far

With bemusing short-sightedness, the key supporters of LOST or, to give it its alternative title, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), are pushing ratification both as a “tool to expand and confirm American sovereignty” and as a “peace tool for the US”. The treaty has been on the books since 1982 garnering wide Western support until Ronald Reagan grounded it perceiving it to be a threat to US sovereign interests. But President Obama, it seems, sees adoption as part of his legacy. In mid-May the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Atlantic Council held a forum at which US politicians, businesses and even national security leaders gave their support to the Treaty. Currently, Senator John Kerry is operating as the administration’s point man. Kerry is holding a series of public hearings to garner further support for the US to ratify LOST. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey (amazingly the US Navy thinks it’s a good idea) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – all avid proponents of adopting the Treaty – have all been called to give evidence.

The thinking runs that the US needs to secure its rights to the vast mineral resources on its extended continental shelf, not least in the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The fact is, however, under existing international law and US policy, America already has access to these areas. And it’s hard to see anyone arguing the fact given US naval clout; which brings us full circle to what’s really going on here. And for those who love liberty and freedom, it turns out to be far more than controlling just US wealth and sovereign rights, as the rush for the Arctic’s subsea energy riches exemplifies.

The USGS estimates that the Arctic has around 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered energy resources, with 84 percent of that figure in deepwater. It is clearly a whole new energy frontier. While various claims to Arctic regions, as well as other energy-rich areas of the world, have been lodged with the UNCLOS, tensions between the Arctic’s littoral states, Russia, Canada, Norway Denmark (Greenland), the US and Iceland have been ratcheting up. with the larger states, particularly Russia, militarizing their claimed regions. The argument from the American left is that as the US has not ratified UNCLOS/LOST it does not have a seat at, what they view, as the UN’s prospective arbitration table. Indeed, the US has notably not submitted any claims to UNCLOS. And without US co-operation any decisions currently made by UNCLOS won’t count for much.

In 2010 I attended the inaugural meeting of The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue which has translated into an annual forum on all matters Arctic hosted by the Russian Geographical Society, sponsored by Putin himself. Those attending included members of another key international forum, the Arctic Council, made up of representatives of all the littoral Arctic states. Bottom line: international ‘jaw-jaw’ forum to deal with everything ‘Arctic’ already exist. So why is a new UN convention with global reach necessary? And who, precisely, thinks it’s a good idea? Let’s take the second issue first.

Usual suspects

Washington Times’ Frank Gaffney describes those pushing for the US to sign up to LOST as “usual suspects – the environmentalists, the one-worlder trans-nationalists, the Obama administration” and other “short-sighted special interests”. Yep, leftwing social engineers all. And US ratification of LOST would give the world’s greatest naval power no more than a single vote at a table chaired by the UN. De-superpowered at a bureaucratic stroke and giving the world’s leading talking shop to rake in a huge ‘tax and penalty’ bonanza from the vast deepwater energy resources on continental shelves.

America signing up to LOST would effectively require it to pay tax royalties to the UN’s International Seabed Authority. It would also become subject to UN powers of arbitration over disputed waters. At whim, the UN bureaucracy could level economic penalties for all sorts of alleged infractions. The UN would, at last, have found a potentially bottomless pit of independent income, mostly at US expense. Greenpeace and other lobbies would salivate at the prospect of suing the US and other countries to force them to sign up to that which has thus far eluded them: a legally-binding climate deal. All in all, ratification of LOST would provide the UN – the same organisation that has elected Iran to the Commission on Women’s Rights and recently invited Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe to become a UN Ambassador – with what the Washington Times’ Ed Fuelner rightly describes as “an economic wrecking ball”.

President Obamamay or may not be out of office come November but he wants a lasting, globally-impacting, legacy. And ‘internationalist’ legacies don’t come much bigger than being instrumental in handing governance of seventy percent of the earth’s surface to an unelected Star Chamber, supported and dominated by one world nutjobs, enviro-freaks, international despots and self-aggrandizing bureaucrats.

The commentary in China’s Liberation Army Daily falls short of a formal government statement, but marks the harshest high-level warning yet from Beijing about tensions with the Philippines over disputed seas where both countries have recently sent ships to assert their claims.

This week American and Filipino troops launched a fortnight of annual naval drills amid the stand-off between Beijing and Manila, who have accused each other of encroaching on sovereign seas near the Scarborough Shoal, west of a former U.S. navy base at Subic Bay.

The joint exercises are held in different seas around the Philippines; the leg that takes place in the South China Sea area starts on Monday.

“Anyone with clear eyes saw long ago that behind these drills is reflected a mentality that will lead the South China Sea issue down a fork in the road towards military confrontation and resolution through armed force,” said the commentary in the Chinese paper, which is the chief mouthpiece of the People’s Liberation Army.

“Through this kind of meddling and intervention, the United States will only stir up the entire South China Sea situation towards increasing chaos, and this will inevitably have a massive impact on regional peace and stability.”

Up to now, China has chided the Philippines over the dispute about the uninhabited shoal known in the Philippines as the Panatag Shoal and which China calls Huangyan, about 124 nautical miles off the main Philippine island of Luzon.

China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan in the South China Sea, which could be rich in oil and gas and is spanned by busy shipping lanes.

REGIONAL TENSIONS

Beijing has sought to resolve the disputes one-on-one but there is worry among its neighbors over what some see as growing Chinese assertiveness in staking claims over the seas and various islands, reefs and shoals.

In past patches of regional tension over disputed seas, hawkish Chinese military voices have also emerged, only to be later reined in by the government, and the same could be true this time.

Since late 2010, China has sought to cool tensions with the United States over regional disputes, trade and currency policies, human rights and other contentious issues. Especially with the ruling Chinese Party preoccupied with a leadership succession late in 2012, Beijing has stressed its hopes for steady relations throughout this year.

Nonetheless, experts have said that China remains wary of U.S. military intentions across the Asia-Pacific, especially in the wake of the Obama administration’s vows to “pivot” to the region, reinvigorating diplomatic and security ties with allies.

The Liberation Army Daily commentary echoed that wariness.

“The U.S. strategy of returning to the Asia-Pacific carries the implication of a shift in military focus, and there is no better strategic opening than China’s sovereignty disputes with the Philippines and other countries in the South China Sea,” said the newspaper.

“The United States’ intention of trying to draw more countries into stirring up the situation in the South China Sea is being brandished to the full,” it said.

NEW YORK – Russian energy Czar Igor Sechin said Wednesday that U.S.-Russia economic relations still don’t reflect their full potential, but that opportunities to tap Russia’s massive oil reserves will provide opportunities for that to change.

At an event in New York describing details of Exxon Mobil Corp.‘s deal with OAO Rosneft, Sechin, who is Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, said that “the time has come in Russia-U.S. relations for a step-up in the level of practical and real projects.”

The partnership between Exxon and Rosneft could give the companies access to about 90 billion barrels of oil equivalent in estimated resources from the Arctic Ocean and the Black Sea, Rosneft said Wednesday.

In a video presented to analysts in New York, Rosneft said that the partnership would drill its first wells at the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean as early as 2014-2015, with a final investment decision on full-scale development expected by 2016-2017. Sechin said that Kara Sea production is estimated to begin around 2027.

The Exxon-Rosneft deal comes in the wake of the Russian government’s efforts to step up the development of new oil production regions, especially in the Arctic. Sechin said that about 5% of oil output to come from new regions by 2020, and up to 40% by 2030.

“We recognize that the implementation of such projects will require strong and consistent support of the state,” which aims to ensure transparent terms of access to the new fields, Sechin said.

Sechin said that under new rules, tax rates were defined for different types of operational conditions. Exxon-Rosneft projects in the Kara Sea will have a royalty of 5%. Royalty levels for deepwater projects in the Black Sea will be 10%, Sechin said.

Long-term investment in offshore development is estimated to exceed $500 billion, Sechin added, creating more than 300,000 jobs.

Overall, the large scale investments needed to tap Russia’s massive oil and gas wealth provides an “enormous potential for U.S.-Russia cooperation, which ought to help us to overcome our over-politicized relationship,” he said.

Such large projects “will be welcomed and will find strong support of the Russian government,” Sechin said.

The Philippine Department of Energy orders Forum Energy to suspend exploration work at Service Contract 72 as the acreage falls within the area of a territorial dispute between the Philippines and China.

Otto Energy farms out a 15 percent stake in Service Contract 55 off the Philippines to Red Emperor Resources and signs a letter of intent for Maersk Venturer to drill the Hawkeye-1 exploration well in the block.

BW Offshore has confirmed that bodies of the remaining three crew members who went missing in the FPSO explosion in Brazil in February, have been recovered. With this, the total number of fatalities from this incident stands at nine. Two crew members remain in hospital, receiving medical attention and their condition is reported to be […]

‘Blue Queen’, the recently delivered, Ulstein-designed, platform supply vessel has landed its first gig in the North Sea. The platform supply vessel, named at Ulstein Verft on Friday, February 27, will be working in the spot market. On Monday, it embarked on its first assignment with Lundin Petroleum. “We are very satisfied that the ‘Blue Queen’, […] […]

Forum Energy, a UK-based oil and gas exploration and production company, has declared a force majeure on Service Contract SC72, offshore the Philippines. The company has said that Philippine Department of Energy (“DOE”) has granted a force majeure on activities in the area because it is situated within the territorial disputed area of the West Philippine Sea […]

Statoil has awarded the Johan Sverdrup SURF Detail Engineering and Services 2015-20 contract to IKM Ocean Design. Johan Sverdrup field is a large oil discovery in production licenses PL265, PL501 and PL502 in the Utsira High region of Norwegian Continental Shelf, 140 km west of Stavanger. The field development is a phased development. Phase one […]

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Abigail Ross Hopper has announced the bureau will offer more than 21 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area. Proposed Western Gulf of Mexico Lease […]

Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP) has launched two pre-qualification contracts for the construction of the 105 km offshore pipeline section under the Adriatic Sea. The greatest depth the pipeline will be laid is 820 meters. According to TAP, the first pre-qualification comprises Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) works for the offs […]

DOF Subsea UK’s survey and positioning business in the UK and US has been awarded an extension of a Master Service Agreement with Heerema Marine Contractors of Leiden, The Netherlands. The contract covers global provision of survey and positioning services on board Heerema Marine Contractor’s vessels, including the Hermod, Balder, Thialf, Aegir and support […]

After the acquisition by LetterOne, the Hamburg based upstream company RWE Dea has a new owner, a new supervisory board and gets a new name. LetterOne is a privately owned Luxembourg-based global investment vehicle focused on utilizing its financial resources, management and investment expertise. At the first general meeting of shareholders a new supervisory […]

Technip has been awarded a contract from Tupi BV, a consortium composed of Petrobras Netherland BV (PNBV, 65%), BG (25%) and Galp (10%), for the ongoing development of the Lula Alto field, located in the Santos Basin pre-salt area, Brazil. This contract covers the supply of around 200 kilometers of flexible pipes and associated equipment, […]

McDermott Middle East, Inc. has been awarded initial work for a significant power supply system replacement contract by Saudi Aramco for the Marjan field, offshore Saudi Arabia. Work is expected to be executed through the fourth quarter of 2016 and will be included in McDermott’s first quarter 2015 backlog. The overall brownfield project comprises integrated […]

Bibby Offshore, a provider of subsea installation, inspection, repair and maintenance services to the offshore oil and gas industry, has made several Board changes as part of a reorganisation of the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP) has launched two pre-qualification contracts for the construction of the 105 km offshore pipeline section under the Adriatic Sea. The greatest depth the pipeline will... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil has awarded the Johan Sverdrup SURF Detail Engineering and Services 2015-20 contract to IKM Ocean Design. Johan Sverdrup field is an oil discovery in production licenses PL265, PL501 and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

McDermott International has been awarded a contract for a new jacket, temporary deck and replacement umbilical by Qatar Petroleum for the North Field Alpha gas development, offshore Qatar. According... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Technip has won a contract from Tupi BV, a consortium composed of Petrobras Netherland BV (PNBV, 65%), BG (25%) and Galp (10%), for the ongoing development of the Lula Alto field, located in the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

DOF Subsea UK Limited, a provider of integrated subsea services, announced that its survey and positioning business in the UK and US has been awarded an extension of a Master Service Agreement with... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

McDermott has been awarded initial work for a significant power supply system replacement contract by Saudi Aramco for the Marjan field, offshore Saudi Arabia. Work is expected to be executed through... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

James Fisher has acquired the entire share capital of Subtech. The initial consideration is ZAR61.0m (£3.4m) in cash plus potential future consideration up to a maximum of ZAR175.0m (£9.9m) based on... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Ireland’s Providence reported that the initial evaluation of the fast-track 3D volume has revealed seismic morphologies in the Drombeg prospect which are consistent with those of a large... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Chevron Australia’s Gorgon Gas Development Fourth Train Expansion Proposal, which is expected to expand the liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity on Barrow Island from 15 to 20 million... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil’s active leases in the Gulf of Mexico

Car sales in February disappointed. In February, the pace of car sales slowed to 16.23 million units, according to AutoData. Analysts were looking for a pace of 16.7 million in February. The biggest miss was from Ford, which saw sales unexpectedly fell 2.0%, much worse than expectations for a 5.8% jump. Sales from Fiat Chrysler, Nissan, General Motors, Hond […]

MJ Day, the editor of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, has been working for the magazine for her whole career. After graduating college in 1997, she was an intern for InStyle, a fellow Time Inc. publication, before taking a low-level job as an editorial assistant on the SI swimsuit issue a year later. Part of that first job was sorting through the e […]

Ferrari has unveiled the new 488 GTB (Gran Turismo Berlinetta), in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of the company's first mid-rear engined V8. The new 488 is supposedly able to accelerate 0-62mph in three seconds flat and 0-125mph in 8.3 seconds. Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press. Follow BI Video: On Faceboo […]

On Monday, the Nasdaq closed above 5,000 for the first time since the height of the tech bubble in March 2000. And as we approach all-time highs for the index, some strategists have argued that this time, it really is different. In 2015, what we know is that the Nasdaq is fairly concentrated in the US. But in 2015, this might not be a bad thing. Via Dadav […]

The bold, colorful new look known as Material Design is a big part of what makes Android 5.0 Lollipop feel different than previous versions of the software. It was a big undertaking on Google's part. Matias Duarte, vice president of design at Google, said the effort involved in creating Material Design was "kind of like going to the moon" in a […]

Washington (AFP) - John Oliver may have been ruled out of the running to replace Jon Stewart but the British comedian's role in helping sway the debate over "net neutrality" has cemented his status as The Daily Show host's spiritual heir.Oliver was the first name on most people's lips last month when Stewart sent his legions of fans […]

In January 2010, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted, "Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved--ANY TIPS??" His car-hailing company, most recently valued at $41 billion, was less than a year old at the time. A guy named Ryan Graves saw Kalanick's tweet and respon […]

Shares of Lumber Liquidators were flying higher on Tuesday, rising as much as 13% after crashing on Monday. Near 2:15 pm ET, the stock had pared these gains and was up about 6%. Shares of the company fell 25% on Monday after a report on "60 Minutes" detailed apparent violations at some of the companies suppliers in China and unsafe levels of formal […]

In December, Minecraft founder Markus Persson reportedly outbid Jay-Z and Beyonce for an amazing home in Beverly Hills. He paid $70 million for the over-the-top, 23,000-square-foot home. In an interview with Forbes, Persson said he received a mysterious offer just a few weeks later. "Someone anonymously offered me $10 million more than I paid for it a […]

Remember "The Dress?" Well, now we have iPhone cases, two of them, so that you can share with your friends and the world which color you think — or thought — the dress was. The glaring problem is that this item will be released on March 27, a full month after people were losing their minds over the dress. And in a month, it seems unlikely that p […]

Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog, Only hours ago, Gallup released a new poll showing that only a small minority (just 17%) of Americans still view the US as the world’s economic superpower. Echoing former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ quip, “There is surely something odd about the world’s greatest power being the world’s greatest debtor […]

While every other word from talking-heads and policy-makers relates various anecdotes (or simple lies) about US economic growth, The Atlanta Fed appears to have taken a 'data-dependent' perspective on the real economy (as opposed to smoke and mirrors). Based on their GDPNow "nowcasting" model, The Atlanta Fed projects Q1 2015 GDP growth o […]

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, The following video of LAPD officers gunning down a homeless man in broad daylight is rightly getting a lot of attention. It’s not as if it was one officer dealing with a dangerous situation who panicked. There was a mob of police officers surrounding the victim, and rather than dealing with the situatio […]

Just yesterday we warned that, among the 'solutions' the Greek government was exploring in its scramble for cash to pay back The IMF loan, was 'borrowing' from the nation's pension funds. Today we get the sad confirmation that indeed Greece will raid cash reserves in pension funds and other public sector entities to cover its funding […]

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com, Are oil prices heading for a double dip? The surge in shale production has produced a temporary glut in supplies causing oil prices to experience a massive bust. After tanking to a low of $44 per barrel in January, falling rig counts and enormous reductions in exploration budgets have fueled speculation that the […]

Back in September, when it first went public, and when it quickly became the talk of the TV studio currently located on the obsolete NYSE floor in New York, a constant source of China buzz, not to mention making Jack Ma China's richest man, Alibaba's market cap soared as high as $250 billion, making it one of the top 10 most valuable companies by m […]

In a 'ripped from The Onion'-esque headline, WSJ reports that David Petraeus - the former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency - will plead guilty to a charge of mishandling classified information. The reitred military general, whose career was cut short by a very public affair with his biographer, reached a plea deal over sharing unautho […]

While the Hillary Clinton email fiasco is sure to be the talk of the town for the next few days, weeks, and months and may have seriously jeopardized the former SecState's chances at becoming America's next president, an even more important story is how the revelation that Hillary exclusively used a private, unencrypted and unsupervised email for 4 […]

Submitted by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital, Going into 2015 the economic outlook held by the U.S. investment establishment could not have been much more positive, and more unified. Pundits saw all the variables aligning to create the best of all investment worlds, a virtual "no-brainer" of optimism. Many believed that the 5.0% annualized gr […]

This article in the Independent Sentinel was apparently developed from an interview that top conservative radio host Mark Levin conducted with broadcaster Susan Payne. Levin is a kind of conservative neocon from what we can tell and the Independent Sentinel seems to believe that radical Islam is the biggest threat since Prussia. But nonetheless, the determin […]

There have been anti-central bank demos in Germany, anti-EU demos across Europe and now there are anti-Monsanto demos in both South America and Europe, including Poland. The South American demos and protests have been going on for a while. But this protest in Poland seems fairly unique and shows once more how people are confronting a variety of authoritarian […]

One of the social mythologies of our time is that it is in the power and ability of governments to remake society in any image or shape that those with political authority consider "good," "right" and "just" for mankind. No other idea has caused more horror and hardship in modern times. The extreme attempts at such "social […]

My wife says I'm weird and she is probably right. First, I personally love cold weather, mountains and skiing, so why am I looking south? Maybe it is because the words of Jimmy Buffet's "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" keep going through my mind. Well, I enjoy cold and snow when it is out in the mountains surrounded by nature […]

Once one understands how much of the information band British media promotions occupy, it is difficult to watch the BBC for any length of time. Watch the Beeb for a day and be educated about how to believe and what to say. The Beeb is a prime exponent of dominant social themes. Each finds space for elaboration on news programming. These themes, in our view, […]